‘Whole trip’ service makes Airbnb bigger than ever, but many want tougher rules

Airbnb is taking on the tourism industry with an ambitious expansion and a star-studded launch but it comes at a delicate time for the company

Airbnb is taking on the tourism industry by offering travellers excursions and experiences hosted by locals, an ambitious expansion which will allow people to plan entire trips through the home-sharing site.

The redesigned app is live and works for a dozen cities, including London, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Paris, Tokyo and Nairobi, and will spread to dozens more next year, and eventually thousands, the company said on Thursday.

Brian Chesky, the companys CEO, made the announcement at the start of Airbnb Open, a three-day gathering of employees, hosts and celebrities in Los Angeles. If you want to travel, you basically end up on a research project, Chesky said. We want to fix this.

It will create a holistic travel experience, said Chesky. This is not a tour. You participate. You are immersed … this is literally just the beginning.

The announcement came at a delicate time for Airbnb. The colossus, valued at $30bn, is eyeing a stock market debut but a rising tide of regulation and concern about the companys impact on property markets threatens to stall breakneck growth. It currently boasts three million property listings in 191 countries.

Critics say that instead of ordinary people renting out spare rooms in a benign cultural and financial exchange, many hosts are commercial operators who fuel rent rises, evictions and gentrification a reality Airbnb allegedly blurs by withholding and massaging data.

New York last month passed a law to fine residents who rent out apartments for illegal short-term stays. San Francisco makes hosts register and can fine Airbnb for listing an unregistered property.

The next big battle is in LA where the city council will soon debate whether to toughen rules.

A coalition of tenants, community activists, labour leaders and business allies is due to rally outside the companys jamboree this week to try to engage hosts and pressure city authorities.

We are very concerned at how short term rents are perverting our housing market and raising our rents, said James Elmendorf, of the advocacy group Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy (Laane). So we are out there educating Airbnb hosts about their responsibilities so theyre not just hearing from the company.

Airbnbs expansion into tours and experiences will open multiple new fronts for authorities around the world who are still wrestling with how to tax and regulate its short term rentals.

The LA gathering includes seminars and workshops with titles like building empathy through community, leaps of faith: strategic risk-taking, interior design tips, finding your inner happy host and be a 5-star host. Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of Eat, Pray, Love, will give a talk titled creative living beyond fear: traveling with curiosity.

Airbnbs ambition and its hosts evangelical fervor will dismay detractors who accuse the company of driving up rents and ruining neighborhoods by siphoning off rental units for tourist hordes, a critique heard in London, Amsterdam, Berlin and elsewhere.

In LA, activists say Venice, the citys bohemian coastal community, is the worst affected: an Airbnb hotspot where rents have spiked 39% between 2011 and 2015.

Airbnb is used by corporate property buyers who masquerade as property owners but are simply creating illegal hotels with no regard for Venice as a collection of neighborhoods, filled with neighbors and community, said Mary Anne Thomas, 64, a librarian who is being evicted from the bungalow she shares with her husband and dog.